“In the world there is the spirit of righteousness, taking many forms,  bestowed on the ever-changing things. Below they are the rivers and mountains; above they are the  sun and stars, With people it is called the spirit of honour and fearlessness, so vast it fills the universe. When the empire is tranquil one pours forth harmony in the splendid court. When times are extreme true fidelity is seen, and goes down in history case after case.”       So goes a poem written by one of the last defenders of the Song Dynasty, Wen Tienxiang, as translated by Feng Xin-ming. Held prisoner by Kublai Khan after the fall of the Song Dynasty, Wen Tienxiang wrote this poem as a part of his refusal to accept to Mongol rule before his ultimate execution. Such defiance was a surprising hallmark of the final years of the fugitive Song court, reduced to a collection of hardliners and loyalists unwilling to peacefully surrender the Mandate of Heaven to the house of Chinggis Khan. Today, we look at the flight of the fugitive Song court after the fall of their capital of Hangzhou in 1276. We will follow brave men like Wen Tienxiang, Zhang Shijie and Lu Xiufu in the final days of the Song Dynasty, a hopeless struggle culminating in the bloody waters of Yaishan in 1279. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Our previous episode brought us to the early months of 1276 with the surrender of the Song capital city of Linan, modern day Hangzhou. The child emperor, Gong of Song, and the elderly Empress Dowager, were brought into the hands of Mongol general Bayan, who escorted them north to bow before Kublai Khan. Organized Song resistance seemed broken, and while the Mongols would need to ensure the official submission of the southernmost regions of Song China, such actions were a mere formality compared to the effort needed to seize the Yangzi River cities. Most of the Mongolian army returned northwards soon after, intent on sparing Mongols and their horses from the worst of the south’s summer heat and humidity. There was but one issue: two of the Song Emperor’s young half-brothers had been smuggled out of Hangzhou under a small guard of soldiers. Bayan had sent riders to pursue them, but the fugitives escaped them in the mountains south of Hangzhou. Fleeing to southern Zhejiang province, they made it to Wenzhou, a city on the coast. From there, they took ships to Fuzhou, just across the straits from Taiwan, where they were joined by other loyalists who had abandoned Hangzhou in the days leading up to Bayan’s arrival. These included the general Zhang Shijie, who had repeatedly fought with the Mongol fleet on the Yangzi in the last episode; Chen Yizhong, the former Song chancellor who had succeeded Jia Sidao; Wen Tienxiang, Yizhong’s brief successor who was temporarily held captive by the Mongols before escaping; and other courtiers and generals, like Li Xiufu and Xia Gui. News of the gathering at Fuzhou spread across the south and brought other hiding loyalists to come out of the shadows in early summer 1276, encouraged by the Mongol withdrawal back over the Yangzi River.       By June 1276, the older of the two half brothers, the five year old Zhao Shih, was declared the 17th emperor of the Song Dynasty, temple name Duanzong of Song. The enthronement prompted a wave of loyalist uprisings in the south and over the summer, growing into an actual offensive against the Mongols. Citizen armies retook cities in Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces. Most of the south and southwest of the Song realm were still outside of Mongol control, and in Sichuan those still resisting found new heart. At Fuzhou, the court built a new navy from those ships which had escaped destruction on the Yangzi, some provided by patriotic ship owners in the south, and some which were forcibly seized from private hands. For a few weeks, there was actual momentum against Mongol rule.   By the fall of 1276, this momentum had largely burnt itself out. The infi